John Houbolt's Passing Has Lessons for All Engineers

It didn't get much coverage in the TV news (I guess there was just so much more important celebrity gossip to report), but John Houbolt passed away recently at age 95. Who was he?

In short, he's the man responsible for the profile of the Apollo moon landings, centered on the idea of using a dedicated, partially disposable lunar lander to shuttle astronauts from an orbit around the Moon to its surface and then back. While he did not claim to originate the idea (it's not clear who did, nor when), he championed it and made the case as often as he could, despite severe pushback and organizational objections.

John Houbolt explains his concept for landing on the moon.

You may wonder, "What's the big deal?" But it's a big deal for several reasons. At the time he worked on it, there had not even been any manned orbital flights around Earth, let alone vehicle rendezvous and docking, and certainly none around the moon. No one knew if such a complex set of maneuvers was possible in basic Earth orbit; to do it around the Moon seemed impossible. Orbital mechanics and navigation are quite difficult and unforgiving, especially when you are so clearly fuel-limited. (It was so complicated that Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11's lunar module pilot, did his MIT dissertation on the mechanics of orbital rendezvous.)

The conventional wisdom, supported by Wernher von Braun and on down at NASA, was that a moon landing would consist of a rocket launch from Earth, a brief stop for an Earth-orbit rendezvous, and then going directly to a moon landing, discarding stages along the way. The last stage would "back down" to the Moon and land gently upright, as you have seen in all those classic movies of the 1950s (such as Destination Moon). Return to Earth would require a lift-off of that final stage from the Moon's surface for a non-stop, direct trip home.

Houbolt did his own assessment of the assumed direct-to-moon-and-back approach, and said it just wouldn't work when you considered all of the weight, fuel, and risk issues. He made a strong case for his alternative, but the NASA establishment made an equally good case, at least initially. (Many engineers up and down the organizational chain were pretty merciless in criticizing his ideas and figures.)

Keep in mind that at this point in the Apollo project, just about everything about the fundamental design and specifics was somewhere between a rough estimate and a wild guess, with thousands of technical unknowns from basic rocket and capsule structure to propulsion, weight, and guidance issues. Everyone was stumbling around in the dark.

My father worked for a compan ycalled Jan Hardware in the 1960s. His company made the large knobs all over the LEM instrument panels. They had a slip-clutch mechanism so the know would keep turning when it reached the end of its travel. It solved the problem of when astronauts would strip the knob's inside whiel wearing heavy gloves.

Along with congrats for his mind and bravery and condolences for John Houbolt's passing, we can take away some engineering thoughts, too.

A big problem is a lot of little problems.

Each solution has its own needs and its dunnage - e.g. photos need to be as clear as possible, but they don't need colloidal plates and wet baths, or developing fluids, or sheet film or wires or even lenses.

Don't own more of a solution than you need to.

Use the engine, burn the crates, eat the freight horses.

The lander module only had to support itself and the recovery module for One Landing! Look at how much simpler both up- and down stream tasks become.

There are worse things than getting fired, if that's the big fear here, Martin. John Houbolt was a public servant doing his job. Maybe not doing your job is worst than getting fired. It depends on your personal integrity and what you are willing to live with.

I'd say it depends on the boss. Those that have confidence in themselves will help you push ideas they think will work up the chain, even carry it for you. The insecure ones will eather shoort your ideas down because they see you as a threat of will claim the idea as thier own. It's called politics.

You can try going over your bosses head or even pushing your idea in a public forum having your idea critisized by your boss as not preferred. That is a short road to the end of your job these days. It does not matter if you are right.

Of course, it helps if there is a ladder or org chart in the first place--too many companies are in such constant internal turmoil/churn that you can't figure out who the level above actually is, iwth job titles/functions that obscure rather than define--it's especially the case for the one(s) above the one right above you.